Replies to post #80406 on Biotech Values

[mcbio]

Re: ATI-7505

The latter: spin. If a product candidate has bona fide commercial potential, large companies such as PG generally find a way to get some value for it.

Fair enough Dew. I just checked the results for the Phase 2b trial of the drug after my prior post. The trial was cut short, since P&G dropped the drug. See: http://investors.aryx.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=329629 .

ARYX reported statistical significance for the primary endpoint of improvement in the total number of spontaneous bowel movements, but it was at the 2nd highest dosing regimen of 80mg bid (apparently 120 mg bid was not successful). I'm generally leery when there's not a clear dose-dependent response; i.e., why wouldn't 120 mg bid be successful if 80mg bid was? That said, the 80mg bid results were apparently stat sig. What do you make of such a paradox?

[iwfal]

The latter: spin. If a product candidate has bona fide commercial potential, large companies such as PG generally find a way to get some value for it.

I disagree. I would suggest that when a large company decides to exit field x there is often inadequate attention paid to the disappearing assets, especially if there are not clear and obvious metrics to measure value (e.g. revenues). The people in charge of divesting are often incentivized to clean it out - not maximize value. You can often see similar behavior in a company that is going out of business - phenomenal steals on furniture etc even though they could get 30 or 40 percent more with little effort.

BTW - I fully agree that there are other occasions where the divesting companies do quite well in extracting full value. My point was only that it is, IMO, unpredictable whether a company is looking for maximizing value or speed.

[drbio45]

>The latter: spin. If a product candidate has bona fide commercial potential, large companies such as PG generally find a way to get some value for it. <


So I guess you also read the contract between PRoctor and Gamble with ARYX and you know that if they terminated the trials it wouldn't revert back to ARYX automatically.